Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c44.21

c44.21

§ 314. The document became the resolution of the state with the fiat of the king. And in the eye of the constitutional law that document became 'the king'. To quote the language of the Śukranīti:¹ "The document signed and sealed by the king is *the king and not the king himself.*" The officers could not obey any unwritten 'order' of the king. For the signed and sealed order of the king, which as a matter of fact was an order of the Council, being the real king, any one who obeyed an actual order of the king in flesh and blood was regarded in the eye of the constitutional law as obeying an outsider, or, in the language of the Śukranīti, a 'thief': obeying an outsider or 'thief':